Friday, August 8, 2003
Reliance + R Connect + Apple PowerBook = Mobile Internet
I'm online using a Reliance LG 2030 phone from Mac OS X. Configuration was rather convoluted:
Since I had picked up a serial cable (for maximum compatibility) but my PowerBook doesn't have a serial port, I picked up a Serial-to-USB converter today (Rs. 750), then came home and discovered that it had a driver only for Classic Mac OS, not Mac OS X. The company's web site had the same driver, last updated in 2000.
Seeing no option to make it work in Mac OS X, I fired up Windows XP in Virtual PC and installed the Windows 2000 driver, which identified the source as Prolific Technology. Looked up Google, but found that neither BSNL nor VSNL was letting me access their site or even Google's cached pages. Network problems?
Next, installed Reliance's R Connect dialer, rebooted the VM twice, got online from the virtual machine, headed for Prolific's tech support site, discovered their search engine broken, backtracked, browsed through their catalogue, and found a Mac OS X driver for their "PL-2303 USB to Serial Bridge Controller". Installed the driver, rebooted (why is a reboot necessary with a microkernel architecture?), opened Network configuration, and discovered a new "usbserial" device. Excellent!
Started to configure PPP settings for Reliance based on this excellent Linux how-to, then found that there was no place I could rewrite the modem's initialisation string to the needed "at cta=30". There was only a bunch of modems to choose from, no settings dialog. Used locate on one of the modem names and found a bunch of modem scripts sitting in /Library/Modem Scripts. Their syntax was non-obvious, so consulted Google again and discovered this modem script generator.
Used it to create a new "Reliance LG 2030" script, attempted to connect, and it worked! Now for some well-deserved sleep, I finally have mobile Internet access.
Since I had picked up a serial cable (for maximum compatibility) but my PowerBook doesn't have a serial port, I picked up a Serial-to-USB converter today (Rs. 750), then came home and discovered that it had a driver only for Classic Mac OS, not Mac OS X. The company's web site had the same driver, last updated in 2000.
Seeing no option to make it work in Mac OS X, I fired up Windows XP in Virtual PC and installed the Windows 2000 driver, which identified the source as Prolific Technology. Looked up Google, but found that neither BSNL nor VSNL was letting me access their site or even Google's cached pages. Network problems?
Next, installed Reliance's R Connect dialer, rebooted the VM twice, got online from the virtual machine, headed for Prolific's tech support site, discovered their search engine broken, backtracked, browsed through their catalogue, and found a Mac OS X driver for their "PL-2303 USB to Serial Bridge Controller". Installed the driver, rebooted (why is a reboot necessary with a microkernel architecture?), opened Network configuration, and discovered a new "usbserial" device. Excellent!
Started to configure PPP settings for Reliance based on this excellent Linux how-to, then found that there was no place I could rewrite the modem's initialisation string to the needed "at cta=30". There was only a bunch of modems to choose from, no settings dialog. Used locate on one of the modem names and found a bunch of modem scripts sitting in /Library/Modem Scripts. Their syntax was non-obvious, so consulted Google again and discovered this modem script generator.
Used it to create a new "Reliance LG 2030" script, attempted to connect, and it worked! Now for some well-deserved sleep, I finally have mobile Internet access.
jessyleen — Aug 8, 2003 3:17:31 AM — # ↩
glad you made it :D
teemus — Aug 8, 2003 3:57:48 AM — # ↩
Took me ten minutes to go online from RH8 using this link...
Something told me you would get a Reliance handset soon! :)
kingsly — Aug 8, 2003 9:38:12 AM — # ↩
Kingsly
thaths — Apr 5, 2004 8:30:29 AM — # ↩
the network is hardcoded for 30 secs to idle anyways... even if you set it up to 255 the phone goes into dormancy in 30secs.
Hmmm. I bought a reliance mobile over the weekend and am facing a strange problem. I can go online just fine. For the first 30 to 60 seconds are so I am able to ping and dig around. But after that I am not able to do anything useful (including pingging my gateway). Do you know how I can get around this on Debian?
Thanks.
Thaths
kingsly — Apr 6, 2004 7:28:47 PM — # ↩
I gave up my Reliance phone a few months ago... too many phones(rather too many phone bills! :-)
You could try leaving a ping running continuously.. which will prevent the phone from going into dormancy. [ping -i 10 hostname]
Jace would probably be a better person to check if this is a recent phenomenon.
aivalli — Aug 8, 2003 2:38:01 PM — # ↩
A big **wow** to your efforts. I adore you for what you have done. :)
More later.
--nerdy
Anonymous — Aug 13, 2003 9:47:53 AM — # ↩
Kingsley
http://kingsley.blog-city.com
Kiran Jonnalagadda — Aug 13, 2003 4:21:11 PM — # ↩
On the whole, a good alternative to dial-up, but not a replacement yet.
Anonymous — Aug 20, 2003 5:49:39 PM — # ↩
yes it's like sinewave and throughput is around 4.5 on the average. tried www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest for the confirmation.. boy why dont they optimize their network or is it lack of bandwidth??
tried some proxy servers but with no help..
Anonymous — Sep 16, 2003 11:54:26 PM — # ↩
I guess its kind of bursty in nature... a continous ping should help keep up the connection to a decent speed. 'coz it keeps going dormant and takes 2-3 secs or even to re-establish the connection
Anonymous — Sep 19, 2003 10:10:05 AM — # ↩
I have a small question>
When you connect to R-Connect, the IP address which is assigned to you, is it public IP or a private IP?
Please reply
Kiran Jonnalagadda — Sep 19, 2003 1:57:54 PM — # ↩
It's a public IP, or at least, appears to be so. It's not in the private IP address subnets (10.x.x.x, 192.168.x.x).
Anonymous — Dec 7, 2003 6:43:07 AM — # ↩
Reliance has posted a link for downloading a driver on its web-site. It claims to be compatible with 10.1 onwards. When you run the package it says that the installation will take 0 KB of space on the selected HDD. It also asks for a re-start of the computer. But the "new serial device found" does not show up in network configuration pane of System Prefs.
I am using an iBook 800 on OS X.2.8 and would LOVE some help to connect it to my Reliance LG phone.
Pankaj - ilearn@mac.com
Kiran Jonnalagadda — Dec 7, 2003 10:04:18 AM — # ↩
The Reliance site isn't very clear on platform support. They say 10.1.2 to 10.1.5, and Jaguar in brackets. Jaguar is 10.2.x.
Have you tried contacting Reliance customer support? Reliance didn't have a USB cable available when I bought it, so I use an external serial to USB cable which uses a different driver.
Anonymous — Dec 11, 2003 3:46:27 AM — # ↩
Hi Kiran, thanks for a great read - I have a PB G4 but unfortunately not the required intelligence to work it out myself.. For the not-so-script-enlightened, what's the way out? Are you finally able to connect thru a reliance mobile using OSX?
Farrokh Chothia.
Kiran Jonnalagadda — Dec 11, 2003 5:15:59 AM — # ↩
Yes, I use Reliance all the time these days.
Reliance also has instructions and downloads for Mac OS X on their site now.
Anonymous — Jun 28, 2005 10:32:11 AM — # ↩
Hey Farfokh - Nadir Karanjia here . I use a Mac too and am trying to figure this out. The Rel customer support seriously sucks. I got fed up telling them that macintosh was not "make of computer is "Tosh" ?" and answering "does it run windows".
Last I figured LG RD 2030 works - but would you guess it , they discontinued it.
Then I heard that Samsung NH191 works - but you have to use some totally unrelated driver from the Mac list called "SUNTAC" and it works - but, what do you know, they Discontinued that model too.
Then I heard that 2130 works - but went across 4 times to ask them to demo it - but they have promised to attend to me "in 5mins" which went on for 20 - 30 mins waiting and so i left each time.
I too dont have the tech capabilities to figure this out - but in case you manage to get info from somewhere that works - pl send me a message man.
Thanks & cheers all
nadir@vsnl.com
Anonymous — Dec 14, 2007 10:17:42 AM — # ↩
Hi, I'm looking for a modem scrpit for the LG 110 phone (iphone), i'm using OSX and Trying hard to connect to the internet.
In my town I have only this option cuz reliance has no broadband or for that matter no other option than the regular landline type connection.
Pls Help.
Joe